Truancy' has been deemed a problem in England since the norm of compulsory elementary education was created in 1870. A dominant story 'discovered' about 'truants' is: they are male, 14 to 16 years of age, live in households headed by a lone female parent; and, their 'truancy' is a reliable predictor they will graduate to other forms of deviance which are deemed to pose a threat to society. Yet despite the exhaustive research that created this story, and significant expenditure by Government on the eradication of the problem, rates of attendance have not significantly improved at schools which existed in the 1870s and that continue to provide education in the twenty-first century. In addition, the 'discovered' categories of absentee embody a 'situated moral reasoning' - for example, the absences of children from white, verbally able, advantaged families are more likely to be medicalised as 'school phobia' than prosecuted as 'truancy'.